Chris Dore fishing report for Reel Life October 2018

An up and down season so far in the south with hot weather, snow, rain and this week, snowmelt affecting rivers.

It's a reminder that as anglers we need to remain adaptable and have more than just a dry/dropper and a handful of size 14 Hares Ears up our sleeves.

Right: Garry Dinnie releases an early season brown.

Getting deep has been the key to success on a number of our main stem rivers and while some afternoons have turned on the mayfly, longer leaders, double tungsten and often split shot have all been getting our flies into the zone.

As rivers start to drop from here on, larger browns will stake their claim to pools and aggressively chase lesser fish out. On mucky weather days a large streamer can provide some explosive fishing - pitched upstream and across to cover, and stripped quickly back.

Brown beetle should make their appearance soon as the soils warm and evening emergences can provide some great terrestrial action on our pastoral streams. For the early bird, there can be some fantastic dry fly action early in the morning as beetles return to the trees after a night feasting and inadvertently end up on the water.

For the late comer, its well worth exploring backwaters, slack edges and the like for drowned beetle, and fish sipping/feeding subsurface to them.

And if you live coastal you won’t need to travel far. The reappearance of smelt in our southern estuaries will get the trout chomping so practise your quick-fire casting and hit those incoming tides.

So get out there and enjoy the remainder of spring in the south... it's all about to happen.